[Taxacom] double-peaked mountains

[Stephen Thorpe]

How ironic that you should take that ship of Theseus line with me of all people, since I have an MA in metaphysics! For present purposes though, the issue is irrelevant. All I need for my argument is "individuals" in the sense of sexually produced offspring (asexual organisms may be trickier), so that one can create a "family tree". I may have changed all my constituent atoms, but I haven't undergone 


From: Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>
To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Saturday, 30 November 2013 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] double-peaked mountains


On 2013-11-29 8:33 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> I was glossing over problems with defining the individual, as they 
> aren't relevant to my main point, but, to be pedantic, all we ever 
> actually see are parts of individuals

To be pedantic, you aren't the man you used to be; most of your atoms 
have been replaced since your birth or even adolescence, with atoms that 
at one time were likely part of a different "individual". What's the 
individual? I know you seem real to yourself, and I as a similar "being" 
fully accept that you are, but demonstrating that you exist as an 
individual requires more than hand-waving. Hence the demonstration that 
"individual" has a special role in biology also requires more
 than 
hand-waving. Frankly, it's just about as scientific as saying "species 
are the basic units of evolution".

Apropos the article, the value of Wilkins's approach is that it doesn't 
require that "species" be definable. 


-- 
Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
Biological Sciences                  +1 909 869 4140
Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768


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